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Teacher declines to enter plea in online seduction case
REDWOOD CITY, Dec 10, 2008 (San Mateo County Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
A Petaluma high school teacher arrested on suspicion of trying to seduce a fictional girl on a MySpace page appeared Tuesday in San Mateo County Superior Court, where he was expected to enter a plea to four felony charges that could net him up to five years in prison.
But Scott Eugene Dietlin, 35, looking despondent, declined to enter a plea to charges related to assertions that he traveled to the Peninsula for a sexual encounter arranged online with a make-believe minor. A new hearing was scheduled for Dec. 23.
The fictional girl, named "Jackie," first sprung to life as the creation of two high school students from Burlingame who created a fake MySpace page as a joke for their friends, authorities said.
Their Web page, which featured a photo they'd found online of a girl under age 18, attracted the attention of Dietlin, who is accused of sending the boys a photo featuring his face and his naked torso, according to the District Attorney's Office.
The students notified Burlingame police, who launched a weeklong investigation culminating in Dietlin's arrest in San Mateo last month.
While the incident generated headlines on the Peninsula, Dietlin's arrest shocked and dismayed many in Petaluma, according to several students at Casa Grande High School who drove two hours south to cover Dietlin's arraignment for the student newspaper.
"A lot of people are very upset" by the arrest, said Linnea Grayson,
17, co-editor of the Gaucho Gazette.
Grayson described Dietlin, who taught her Advanced Placement course in economics, as a "lively" and "witty" teacher and said his "scruffy and tired" appearance in court seemed out of character.
"It must have been really embarrassing for him to see students from his class," she added.
"I knew that I would be kind of disturbed by (coming to the arraignment,)" said Eliza Kritz, 17, one of several student journalists contributing to the two-page spread devoted to the controversy for the high school paper. "But we wanted to come anyway because we thought it would be important."
Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said he was dismayed by the case and "stunned" that online predators continue to stumble into law enforcement stings, despite the widespread publicity surrounding police surveillance of social networking sites.
"The predilection of these predators is so strong that despite the fact these defendants know that police monitor these Web sites, they will reach out on the computer to someone they've never met and don't know for sexual purposes," he said. "It's amazing. It really does amaze me."
Dietlin remains in custody in lieu of $700,000 bail.
Staff writer Aaron Kinney contributed to this story. Reach Michael Manekin at 650-348-4331 or at mmanekin@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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